As of today's writing, October 1, 2019, I have never heard any of the
talking heads on TV nor have I read in newspapers or magazines or on the
Internet that the current president of the United States is a sadist.
Because
I am convinced Donald Trump suffers from a severe form of Narcissistic
Personality Disorder, it's not surprising that he lacks empathy, because
that is a characteristic of what psychologists shorten to NPD. But
outright sadism is not a symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which
I shorten to narcissism. Sadism is its own standalone
mental condition and, needless to say, it is extremely bad. Sadism is
indisputably evil. In fact, it is the very definition of evil.
Therefore, Donald Trump is the very definition of evil.
(Let me interrupt myself in order to save certain cowardly readers some time. I think Donald Trump was the worst U.S. president in my lifetime and
maybe the worst ever. I believe when history books are written fifty
years from now, Trump will lead the list.
I can't help thinking of a
performance by Will Farrell, who was famous on "Saturday Night Live" for
portraying president George W. Bush, who was famous for being a boob.
In 2017, less than a year into Trump's disastrous presidency, Mr. Farrell
was clearly impersonating the
president before Barack Obama, tossed a pretend cigarette onto the stage and
stepped on it, and the first thing he said was, "How do you
like me now?")
I don't understand why no one else, as far as I know, has made the
observation that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is a
sadist. Maybe it's because saying the American president is a
sadist is so unthinkable. Maybe it's because no one believes there's
adequate proof to make such an extreme statement, but I do. Let me
list a few examples, in chronological order of their revelation, that, I
think, prove Donald John Trump is a sadist.
But first let me compare a mere, if that's the right word, lack of empathy
to outright sadism. If you suffer from a lack of empathy then, first,
I feel sorry for you, but, second, you are incapable of or unwilling to putting yourself in
the shoes of someone who is suffering. That's bad in any person, of
course, but it's just, plain horrible in a U.S. president.
But as bad as a lack of empathy is, sadism is worse. Sadists take
pleasure in the suffering of others and wish to cause more. The
word "unthinkable" doesn't seem strong enough.
Here are some examples that prove Trump is a sadist. I have no doubt
there are more, but any one of these alone is sufficient proof, because
there is no better explanation.
• On approximately November 24, 2015,
while he was still a candidate for the presidency, Trump mocked the
disability of a reporter. Trump made fun of a person's
physical disability, something a well-reared five-year-old knows is
unacceptable even to think of.
See a video clip
here (which also mentions one of Trump's 12,000 lies so far,
although to be fair that number of 12,000 is only since Trump was
inaugurated; according to
The Washington Post, the number has risen to over 16,000 during his
first three years., which means the average is over 14 per day, 365.25 days a
year.
(According to the Wikipedia article
here, the number reached over 30,000 during his four years as president,
which is over 20 per day. It should be said that this number of lies
or misleading statements was listed by The Washington Post, a
newspaper which was and still is virulently anti-Trump.)
According to the article
here, which True Trump Believers will regard as fake even though it's not,
Donald Trump's pathological lying got worse as he progressed through his four-year term. Now
that Trump lost to Biden (today is January 8, 2022), he frequently
reiterates The Big Lie, which is that he, Trump, is the legitimate president of
the United States. This despite the fact the popular vote and the
Electoral College and the president of the Senate, the extreme brown-noser Mike Pence, have declared Biden the winner.
And despite the Trump-inspired insurrection at the Capitol on January 6,
2021. In my opinion the fact we still have a country is a testament to
how strong our constitution is, despite four years of Trump as president and
his Big Lie.
Returning to Trump's making fun of someone's disability, there is no better
explanation for such despicable behavior than that he
is a sadist. Perhaps worse, he clearly believed that at least some of
the people in attendance at that campaign event, where he knew cameras and microphones were pointed
at him, would applaud his mocking. (It's because of his Narcissism or
perhaps some other condition that he so adores cameras.)
If I hadn't already (I had) thought Donald Trump was unsuited to be
president of anything, this mocking incident confirmed that conclusion.
Donald Trump is mentally a baby inhabiting a man's body, and he suffers from
narcissism and possibly Histrionic Personality Disorder.
(It's nice
to own DSM-IV, which means you can cruise thrugh the pages and say, "No, I
don't have that, I don't have that, I don't have that." Donald Trump
has to stop at NPD and what I assume is called HPD and really ask himself,
"Do I have that?")
Speaking of his three Supreme Court appointees, in a six (conservatives,
including all of Trump's appointees) to three (liberals) vote, the U.S.
Supreme Court decided that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) did not have the authority to carry out Biden's mandate that
employers of a hundred or more require vaccines or negative testing.
This decision flies in the face of science and common sense. And it
flies in the face of the defining purpose of OSHA.
(Of the
nine currently active justices sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, Donald
Trump holds the record by having appointed three. Next is a tie between
Barack Obama and George W. Bush at two each, and finally is a tie between
Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush at one each.) I regard it as
unfortunate that Trump was president when three of the nine justices needed
to be replaced. One should keep in mind two things: First, these are
lifetime appointments. Second, the U.S. Senate approved all of these
three appointments.
• For a period starting in April of 2018,
during which time he had been president for over a year, Trump implemented a policy
at the border between Mexico and the U.S. that caused children to be
separated from their parents. A five-year-old relies entirely on her
parents, and she takes needed emotional sustenance from them. Separating a
child from her parents is unspeakably cruel, not only to those parents but
of course to that child. The result of such separation can do
permanent damage to that child, including a potentially serious condition
called Reactive Attachment Disorder, which I suspect Trump himself has; one
of the symptoms of what's called RAD is, you guessed it, a lack of empathy.
When Rachel Maddow, who in my opinion is one of the best explainers of the
news of the day and who rarely gets rattled, essayed to describe this cruel
policy of Trump's, she broke down and couldn't finish.
See a startling video clip
here and a blander follow-up video clip
here. June 6, 2020: There's a depressing follow-up, dated
today,
here, that further proves my point that Trump, not
to mention some of his associates, is a sadist.
As I said before and will say again, that Trump is a sadist is the best
explanation for such a policy, although Stephen Miller deserves credit.
Please understand that if Trump had said to Miller, "Why no, that's a
sadistic policy that no one should ever consider, and you're fired," that
policy would never have seen the light of day, and Miller would have been
fired. Trump knew children would be separated
from their parents because of his policy, which normal people would
immediately reject as obviously unjustifiable, because he wanted to
cause that pain.
• In August of 2019 Trump's administration decided, with Trump's approval
if he didn't initiate it, to prevent non-U.S. citizens with certain medical
conditions from staying in the U.S. Understand that these people are
here in the U.S. for the purpose of receiving treatment that is keeping them
alive, treatment that is unavailable in their home countries. Said
another way, and a way that True Trump Believers will somehow manage to disagree with, Trump
wanted to commit murder, which is pretty darn close to the ultimate in
sadism. See the video clip
here.
As I have said, Trump's sadism is the best explanation for such a policy.
• At one point in March of 2019, and maybe before, Trump
is said to have wanted people who were trying to cross the southern border into the United States to
be shot in the legs "to slow them down." People, not rabid coyotes or
domesticated wild bear, but real, living people.
The link below adds
credibility to my claim that Trump said to shoot 'em in the leg.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/02/politics/esper-trump-protesters/index.html
Also, he wanted, and maybe still does, to build trenches around his wall and
stock those trenches with alligators or snakes. Also, he wanted, and
maybe still does, to electrify the top of his wall so as to electrocute
people climbing it. Also, he wanted and maybe still does, to top his
wall with spikes to "pierce human flesh." See a video clip
here.
The only realistic explanation for such unimaginable cruelty, which Trump
wants to cause, is sadism.
• That Trump as U.S. president handled
the Covid-19 pandemic badly is an understatement. He so
thoroughly botched the logistics of preparing for and responding to the
pandemic that he could arguably be responsible for many thousands of deaths.
One could argue that he is merely stupid and ignorant, as I believe he is
(despite the
times he hilariously
referred to himself as a "a very stable genius"), but I
argue that his wanton recklessness with respect to Covid-19 is further
evidence of his sadism.
At a time when U.S. Covid-19 deaths numbered half a million, Deborah Birx, Trump's coronavirus response coordinator, estimates that
100,000 U.S. deaths because of Covid-19 were inevitable, which leaves Trump
responsible for another 400,000. But let's reduce 400,000 by ten
times, and just to be fairer let's reduce that 40,000 by another ten times
and, just to be extremely fair, let's reduce that 4,000 by ten times again,
which means Trump is responsible for 400 coronavirus deaths.
Now imagine that your loved one, perhaps a parent or a best friend, was
among those 400. Because of the coronavirus restrictions -- at various
times imposed by the WHO (World Health Organization), the CDC (Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)
-- that loved one died without your opportunity to hold that person's hand and
say goodbye, without your opportunity to see that loved one one last time.
Trump is responsible for your disappointment, because he decided it was best
to suggest using disinfectant, best to use light somehow, best just to wait
till the heat made all those infections disappear, best to discourage
wearing masks, and best to use hydroxychloroquine. All of his ideas
fly so directly in the face of science that, in my opinion, he should have
been impeached and convicted for that alone. Oh, and cheating at golf.
Trump decided it was best for his political well-being to so thoroughly
botch the American response to the coronavirus epidemic that you might have lost a
loved one to that disease. He was wrong times 400,000, and that's not
to mention the thirty million of U.S. survivors of an infection of
Covid-19. I am exasperated at trying to express my anger at his
selfishness and ignorance, not to mention his repeated flouting of the oath
of office he swore to. I blame Trump's narcissism, his lack of
empathy, and his shamelessness. And his sadism.
And it's not as though Trump was merely a hapless boob without access to the
science. According to
the link
here, which Trump lovers will call fake, "The Trump administration
engaged in 'deliberate efforts' to undermine the U.S. response to the
coronavirus pandemic for political purposes . . . ." The phrase
"deliberate efforts" in the quote above is important, and it puts the lie to
any notion that Trump was merely a boob. He wanted to cause
that awful harm. For those of you who want to, please read the
entirety of that article.
The head of the
link below says, "Birx,
who
recalls a 'very difficult' call with Trump, says hundreds of thousands of
Covid deaths were preventable." The subhead reads, "I look at
it this way: The first time, we have an excuse," Birx said about the initial
surge of deaths. "All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been
mitigated or decreased substantially." (Reducing 400,000 to 400
should eradicate the "in my mind" and "substantially" phrases above.)
Joe Biden, the U.S. president now, has proven that the long-running
Covid-19 emergency can be handled well if you listen to the experts and if
you care whether millions of American citizens contract Covid and over
800,000 die from it. It appears Trump simply did not care.
I repeat, who else thinks Trump, for four long years the president of the United States, is a sadist?
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